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we're in the Galleria Borghese in Rome
looking at an important very early
sculpture by Bernini this is Pluto and
Persephone this is a bit of a difficult
subject Pluto who rules over he D is the
land of the dead is shown here abducting
the beautiful Persephone she's the
daughter of Zeus and Demeter Demeter is
associated with life with the growth of
the fields with nature with crops with
fertility and she's devastated by the
loss of her daughter but a deal is
struck Persephone only spends half the
year in the underworld and the other
half of the year here on earth a
fanciful explanation for why crops grow
only in the warm months although the
sculptural group is now in the middle of
a room the sculpture was originally
placed very close to a wall and is
really meant to be seen from the front I
find this to be a difficult sculpture
when I first look at it because my eye
goes immediately to Pluto and the grin
on his face as he's abducting Persephone
feels very distasteful especially in
contrast to Persephone who is rendered
so beautifully and she looks as if she
is truly repulsed by him she doesn't
want to touch him she's using her left
hand to push his forehead away but she
curls her fingers away she doesn't want
to lay her entire hand on his body even
her toes seem tensed up as she tries to
resist him but probably the most
striking aspect of the sculpture for me
is the way Pluto's fingers press into
her thigh and the artist demonstrates
the elasticity of flesh but in hard cold
stone this is marble this is magic this
is what Bernini could do best he could
make marble appear to be flesh or
feathers or hair the bark of a tree he
could transform marble into almost any
material this sculpture began as a block
and the artist chisels and drills to
remove the unnecessary stone but this
sculpture is so delicate it almost seems
as if it's made the way a bronze
sculpture is made that is it was built
up in
or wax so delicate and so fine are the
details that's especially true with her
hair that flies back it is as though
he's modeled that in some soft material
or the cloth that almost like a
corkscrew spins behind her here we are
in the 1600s this is the Baroque era the
movement that we see here this caught
moment in time is part of what makes
this Baroque in style it would be
impossible for these figures to hold
their position for more than one moment
in time look at Pluto both of his legs
are flexed those knees are bent his body
is so unstable he must be in motion he
must be moving forward this lacks all of
the stability of the high Renaissance
the composition seems to be in the shape
of an ax of two intersecting diagonal
lions as soon as you have a diagonal er
a sense of movement and instability the
idea of movement is even expressed in
the dog that guards Hades Cerberus whose
three heads almost seemed as if they
might be one head in motion and I'd love
the fact that Bernini has sculpted the
eye of one of the dog heads as a spiral
speaking of instability Pluto's weight
is really carried just on that forward
foot on his left foot and the right foot
is up and he's just on the ball of his
foot and three of his toes this is
incredibly unstable he seems to be in
the process of wasting her up and she's
in the process of pushing him away we
have conflicting desires here this is
not a movement in unison this is a
conflict but this is also an exercise in
the beauty of the human body in the
beauty of form Bernini was a deeply
religious man in a deeply religious
culture but this is not in any way a
religious drama this is mythology this
is speaking to the cultured status of
the man who commissioned this and they
continued importance of ancient Greek
and Roman culture even here in the
Baroque era
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